Wind turbines rely on wind turbine blades to extract energy from the wind to generate electrical power. In the current state of the art larger blades on the order of 50 meters or more are being used in order to extract more energy. These blades are often manufactured at a facility and transported to a wind farm for final assembly into a wind turbine. The size, and in particular, the length of the blades poses logistical problems during the transportation step due to limitations of the infrastructure, including roadways, bridges, and in particular railway etc.
Industry has proposed various solutions to alleviate the transportation problems, including fabricating the blades in multiple pieces. These pieces may be assembled together at the wind farm to form the blade, usually by joining rigid components using fasteners such as bolts and optionally applying an adhesive. However, the blades formed using these methods still include bolted joints and these bolted joints may not endure as well as a cast blade would. Consequently there remains room in the art for improved methods for assembling of wind turbine blades.